


Tragic Heroes - Tragic Lovers

by nightwingingit



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Angst, I DON'T OWN ANYTHING, JayDick Week, Love, M/M, Tragedy, dick and jason insert basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 09:54:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12274020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwingingit/pseuds/nightwingingit
Summary: The Song of Achilles with Jason and Dick





	Tragic Heroes - Tragic Lovers

**I don't usually make these kind of remarks but this one I feel like I have to!  I don’t own anything!  I stole whole dialogues from The Song of Achilles.  So I don’t deserve any credit at all!  You should just go read that book because Patroclus and Achilles are so freaking in love.**

 

Of course I changed the story a bit.  At first I thought Dick would be the perfect Achilles but avenging a fallen lovers death?  That was so Jason Todd I had to give the role of Achilles up to him.  If I wished to write a fluff piece maybe the rolls would have switched?  Anyways, I hope you enjoy!

 

\---

 

“Do you care if they’re angry?” Jason asked, running his hand along Dick’s collarbone lovingly.

 

‘Yes.’ Dick thought.  He hated the notion of those who cared for Jason to be cross with him.  Disapproval always burrowed deep within him.

 

But even if they were to find out, their disapproval would not keep him from Jason and so he told him, “No.”

 

“Good.” Jason answered.

 

Dick stroked a wisp of Jason’s hair from his temple.  Jason leaned into the touch, closing his eyes.

 

When he opened them he spoke, “Name one hero who was happy."

 

Dick considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.

 

"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.

 

"I can't."

 

"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."

 

"Tell me." Dick loved it when he was like this.

 

"I'm going to be the first." Jason took his palm and held it to his. "Swear it."

 

"Why me?"

 

"Because you're the reason. Swear it."

 

"I swear it," Dick said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.

 

"I swear it," he echoed.

 

They sat like that a moment, hands touching. Jason grinned.

 

"I feel like I could eat the world raw.”

 

\---

 

“I am taking your armor and joining the fight.”

 

“No.  I cannot let you do that.”

 

“You must.  You will not be able to go in your condition and your soldiers need you to lead them.  I am a great fighter just as you are.  If I go under your guis then there is no doubt in our victory.”

 

“I beg you, Dick, don’t do this.”

 

“I have to.”

 

“Dick!”  He knows Dick will go no matter what he says and so he takes Dick’s hand in his and firmly holds it as if trying to transfer all his strength and will into Dick’s body, “Go only until the ships are saved.  Go and then quickly return to me.”

 

\---

 

Dick stands at the gate of Troy, so close to conquering the city in the name of his lover.

 

He knows Jason will be angry that he did not go home after saving the ships but he also knows that war waits for no one and now was the optimal time to strike the Trojans down.

 

His plans looked as if they would come through, Troy was to fall soon enough but then he did not account for such divine intervention as this.

 

Apollo had eyed him from the heavens and shot his arrow straight for Dick’s chest, wounding him in battle.  

 

As Dick fell heavily to his knees he looked up to see the man that Apollo allowed to deliver the final blow and cursed him, “You coward.  Without the courage to fight me on your own you used such a tactic to bring my downfall.  Jason will come for you Hector… and he will bring yours.”

 

\---

 

Jason weeped. He cradled Dick, and did not eat, nor speak a word other than his beloved’s name.

 

When it came time Jason collected Dick’s ashes himself, though this was a women's duty.  He put them in a golden urn, the finest in the camp, and turned to the watching Greeks.

 

“When I am dead, I charged you to mingle our ashes and bury us together.”

 

And then when the time finally came.  He showed no mercy as he struck down his foes.  Hector fell at Jason’s hand, crumpled like paper and blown away in the wind.

 

But Jason knew he would fight until he himself was no more.  He didn’t wish to be a part of this earthly plane any longer.  He did not wish to live after Dick was gone.  

 

So he fought, until he hurt and bled, until his heart could take no more and he could finally rest with his beloved.

 

\---

 

In the darkness, two shadows, reached through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands met, and light spilled in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.

 

 

~~~~~~~~

 

**Other quotes that would have been amazing to use and are just so good I have to share them with you.  Bless Madeline Miller:**

 

“He was watching me, his eyes as deep as earth.

"Will you come with me?" he asked.

The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. "Yes," I whispered. "Yes.”

\--

“Those seconds, half seconds, that the line of our gaze connected, were the only moment in my day that I felt anything at all. The sudden swoop of my stomach, the coursing anger. I was like a fish eyeing the hook.”

\--

“We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake in this room loving him in silence.”

\--

“And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.”

\--

“When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.”

\--

“I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.

If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth.

As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong.

“Patroclus,” he said. He was always better with words than I.”

\--

“Achilles was looking at me. “Your hair never quite lies flat, here.” He touched my head, just behind my ear. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you how I like it.”

My scalp prickled where his fingers had been. “You haven’t,” I said.

“I should have.” His hand drifted down to the vee at the base of my throat, drew softly across the pulse. “What about this? Have I told you what I think of this, just here?”

“No,” I said.

“This surely then.” His hand moved across the muscles of my chest; my skin warmed beneath it. “Have I told you of this?”

“That you have told me.” My breath caught a little as I spoke.

“And what of this?” His hand lingered over my hips, drew down the line of my thigh. “Have I spoken of it?”

“You have.”

“And this? Surely I would not have forgotten this.” His cat’s smile. “Tell me I did not.”

“You did not.”

“There is this too.” His hand was ceaseless now. “I know I have told you of this.”

I closed my eyes. “Tell me again,” I said.”

\--

“He is half my soul, as the poets say.”

\--

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”


End file.
